Fakes, fabrications and falsehoods? Interrogating the social, ethical and political features of pseudo-global health

A phenomenon is emerging in global health: a blurring between the real and the fake. In different geographical locations, the same object can be simultaneously regarded as both real (certified and authentic) and fake (uncertified and inauthentic). I will use everyday examples to show how this paradox is possible.

I will investigate two key goals in global health: the production of knowledge; and access to drugs and medicines. Illustrative case studies from areas simultaneously considered real and fake will be explored as examples of ‘pseudo-global health’. I will focus on global health at different scales – global online networks as well as frontline experiences, and different contexts such as the global north and south.

This research seeks to directly engage in the areas of ambiguity in global health to further understand how uncertainty and moral paradoxes are reconciled in practice.